Dedicated to getting to the truth of things. A Christian since 1984. (Just a Christian, without pigeon-holing into a denomination.) I like people to be free to ask their questions about Christianity and the church. I like to approach faith questions with my brain switched on. A qualified classicist and historian.
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And I don't look like James Garner. Enough about me already.

Sunday, 14 June 2015

Did Jesus Exist? 4a. So then: what about the people who were interested in Jesus before Paul was?

It's a big deal to know what people in Judea in the 30s believed about Jesus - before even Paul was a believer. And it's a very big deal to have this information about them first-hand from someone who was there with them. Paul is a primary source for this - a first-hand eyewitness who met them, and left us his own words about them. We can even workout the dates when he was persecuting them from his eyewitness letters.

Who were they?

Before looking at the beliefs of these people about Jesus, what do we learn about the people
themselves? Who were they? It’s good to notice that Paul gives us crucial first-hand
information about them in Galatians 1. One thing he doesn’t do is call them
‘Christians’. That’s a word – along with the word ‘Christianity’ – that never
appears in Paul’s letters. It’s a word that may not even have been around in
the 30s. But even without them being called by any such name, Paul knew how to
pick them out.

What Paul knew about them

Let's go gathering data. This is Paul's eyewitness testimony about these people he met:

In the 30s, they were members of churches and living in
Judea (Gal 1:22).

There was something about what these Jews said or did
that marked them out as different, compared to Jews like Paul. Paul didn’t like
it at first, being concerned for his Jewish ancestral traditions, as if this
group were a threat to his traditions (Gal 1:13-14).

These people in Judea included some whom Paul
calls ‘apostles’. That means some of them had some special status. Paul speaks of them as those who 'were apostles before I was'. (Gal 1:17)

In particular, it was in Jerusalem that he found
Peter and James, men who were obviously an important part of this religious group
(Gal 1:18 and 2:9). By the way, since Paul met Jesus’ brother James, then there is good evidence Jesus existed (as if it wasn’t becoming evident anyway from a lot of these
details).

Actually, Paul writes Jakob which we translate as ‘James’.
(To keep it simple, I’m referring to them as James and Peter, but writing in
Greek Paul uses their names Jakob and Cephas. If we wanted to be really fussy:
Paul writing in Greek calls himself Paulos.)

So we know whereabouts these people were to be found in the
30s – in Judea - and who some of them were. What else does Paul tell us about
them? This is important since Paul says he followed their beliefs after he
changed sides and stopped harming them (Gal 1:23).

Well, he tells us that the faith these people
had was something to do with Christ (Gal 1:22).

And these people had been harmed by himself in
the 30s (Gal 1:13 and 23).

But that what happened then was something
extraordinary: the churches in Judea got news that Paul had converted to their
faith! (Gal 1:23)

And that means the churches had not given up
their religion, despite being persecuted by Paul – they were still around to
hear about his conversion.

Peter allowed Paul to stay with him for fifteen days one time in the 30s because Paul wanted to get to know him (Gal 1:18).

And
after telling us about the 30s, Paul carries on by telling us about what was
happening in the 40s.

Paul tells us that it was still in Jerusalem
that he could find Peter and James (and John too - Gal 2:9).

He says that Peter was a Judean and that Peter
and others loyal to the Jerusalem church followed Jewish customs – some more
than others (Gal 2:12-14).

He tells us that Peter was preaching something
called a ‘gospel’ – meaning ‘good news’ - to other Jewish people (Gal 2:7), and
that James and John were also going to Jewish people (Gal 2:9).

And Paul gives us little details, such as that
he had friends called Barnabas and Titus with him on one occasion when he met
Peter, James and John (Gal 2:3 and 9).

He says that Peter, James and John were keen on
some people being cared for who they called ‘the poor’ (Gal 2:10).

He says that the fact that Peter and others
loyal to the Jerusalem church still followed Jewish customs meant they had some
trouble knowing how to get along with non-Jews (Gal 2:14).

It’s worth mentioning that Paul knew of events further
afield in the 40s and 50s.

He tells us that Peter (and some people from
James) travelled a bit and met him in Syria – in a town called Antioch – where
they had their argument with each other (Gal 2:14).

The Jesus movement got to the city of Rome
(Romans 1:7 and 15).

Is Paul a credible eyewitness about the people he met?

Historians in general consider Paul a credible witness on these matters. When he says he had victimised these people and why, there is no very good reason to doubt his word on that. I've heard naysayers saying they dismiss Paul's every word out of hand because he had a supernatural worldview. But here's the thing: in the ancient world, everyone - including every writer - had a supernatural worldview, and we would be unable to use a single word from the ancient world if that was such a problem! In fact, what the critical historian does is to take the usable evidence from the witnesses, without having to take every detail onboard on face value. You sift the evidence, and hold on to the more credible elements. What Paul says about the people he met in the 30s, 40s and 50s is credible. In fact, it is pretty amazing to have an eyewitness of church life in the 30s, and such a witness needs to be used as much as is reasonable to do so. Paul's data is underused by people talking about this era, and this blog aims to put that right.

Was Paul's source credible?

Did Paul have a credible source for his information? Obviously, since he targeted Christians for persecution for their beliefs, we can infer that they were willing to stand up for their beliefs. This means that when Paul wrote that he holds the same faith that was held by the Judean churches which he had persecuted, he was sure that they he had got accurate information about his victims and from his victims. A reasonable reader can conclude that Paul had a credible source for his information about Jesus and he was credibly conveying it.

A big part of the point here is that these people are very close in time to the days when Jesus was supposed to be a public figure and died - in the same decade, indeed within just a few years. This means they would know as a fact whether there had been a historical Jesus, and their information about Jesus would be more credible too. Forget anyone who tells you that there is no information about Jesus' life-story until decades or centuries later. Because here it is, details of his life and death, right there in the 30s.